LAYOUT IDEAS - 22.11.2013.

So here are a few other layouts that I tried out this morning. I thought I'd give the cut out text one another try with a darker background and I quite like it! It really makes the image stand out, as well as the text, but I might try and change up the colour of the headers if I can since I don't think I'd want them to necessarily be orange. The next three images are just variations of each other. I decided to type up each bit of text since I found a nice font on dafont.com called Augustus. It's slightly Roman/Greek looking but without being really stereotypical and obvious. One thing that annoyed me though was that I couldn't make the writing justified on Photoshop so it's not all neat like I'd like it to be. It looks fine but I'd still prefer it to be all in line with each other so I will see if I can somehow master that. 

The yellow background on the second image is a bit of a mess really but I just wanted to see what it would look like. I don't particularly like it with a block colour background, it just doesn't seem to sit right with my image and design. It might be because the yellow just doesn't work full stop but I have a feeling that any other colours wouldn't compliment my work. Whereas on the fourth image I feel like it's getting somewhere! I stuck to the dark background, it's actually the same one that I used to build my collages onto, but changed the text to white so then it was legible. The image I used for this one was Aries so instead of making a whole little corner dedicated to it, I thought it would be nice to just highlight the corresponding text to the image. I used the Eyedropper Tool on PS to pick out the pink from the planet and then changed the text to a vibrant pink. I think this works a lot better than just keeping the text plain and it also means that it wold be easy for the reader to quickly find their horoscope, if its the 'star sign of the month'.

LAYOUT IDEAS - 21.11.2013.

This week has been so busy with finishing up my essay but now that is all done and ring bound for hand in tomorrow, I can concentrate on the rest of my project! I started to play around with layouts for my images to see what worked best and these are just a few that I had tried out. 

I just picked out the Aquarius sign I made and worked around that. With the top two images I just cut out the text from a horoscope page that I had scanned in previously just so I could create a layout quicker than typing it all out. I think that layout I've chosen to do is the easiest way to fit all of the text onto the page clearly but I might try and make it a double page spread since that could be a new way to present the horoscopes. I quite like having the different backgrounds on them but I don't think I have found the right ones since I don't feel 100% sure on those. But then again they are just quick layouts to get my brain thinking. 

The third one is one that I just had the plain white background on, again, with the cut out text. I actually really like it with the white background since it's usually what they opt for in magazines. I think because my images are quite crisp and graphic then the stark background compliments them well. I want to try out different colours and maybe the original black background that I built my collages on to see what works best. In regards to the text I like the cut out look of the paper since it's something different than the standard typed out text and adds a nice texture but I will try typing up a few of my own with a different font to see how that works out too. 

LAYOUT AND COLOUR IDEAS.

Since I've nearly made all of my images I thought that I would play around with colour and layouts to see what worked best. 

I wanted to keep the images within circles since astrology and lot's of old drawings that I've found with my research all revolve around circular grids and obviously the planets. It's also another way to keep my work looking more uniform and together, even though the collages are all different from each other. Usually within magazines they have the 'Star sign of the month' so will only have an illustration relating to that and not all 12 signs. This makes sense since you don't want to bombard the page with lots of imagery so I think when it comes to creating the layout I will be doing much the same thing. 

I played around with the hue and saturation so that they all linked together aesthetically and I like how the third and fourth images down came out. I muted the colours right down for those but I'd like to see if I can make the star and constellation parts a bit brighter so they have more of a sparkle to them. I'm not too keen on the background being that dark so I'll play around with the saturation on that to see if it looks any better lighter or just see what else could work with the images best. I'd like to see what textured backgrounds look like or even blocks of colour too. 

GEMINI.

I'd made this for the star sign Gemini. I purposely created the image slightly fuzzy and layered with the same face to give the impression of another being which links in with being a Gemini. I didn't want to directly stick to people together so wanted to see if I could so it differently. I love how these turned out since they look slightly eerie and the 'two faces' image is very subtle. I think the bottom one is my favourite out all of them but I'll have to see what they look like once they're all next to each other. 

CAPRICORN.

These are a few development images that I made for Capricorn. I have quite a few on my USB but I didn't want to bombard this post with loads of images so thought I'd pick out the initial design then some refined ones. I thought that the first one worked well since it's very simple but then again that can be its downfall so I wanted to try out some of the landscape images I'd previously scanned in. I sort of like the second image but I don't think that the background image works well with this, it looks a bit disconnected. The third one is my second favourite, after the first one, the spaceship/atmosphere background works well since it blends into the woman and makes her appear slightly hypnotised. I've got more on the way so I'll keep this updated. 

CANCER.

Here are some illustrations for the star sign Cancer. One of the words used for their personality is 'moody' so I thought that the stare of Actress Lauren Bacall was perfect. The castle image for the background is actually from one of the photos that I'd scanned in from my grandmothers book! I thought it worked really well and I changed the colour and saturation more on Photoshop so that it wasn't such a contrast against everything else. I personally prefer the top illustration without the tiny symbol overlapping the orange circle, so I will probably decide to work with that as one of my finals. 

ARIES.

So here we have the star sign Aries! I actually found this one really hard to do and I don't know if I am still entirely happy with this one but it's all development so it can't be wrong. One of the traits that I'd found for Aries was 'religious and spiritual' hence the very Madonna-esque woman I used for this. As you can see through each image I played around with the aspect of the horns. Obviously this an integral part of an Aries since their sign is the ram but I just couldn't figure out if I wanted them in or not. So I played around with having them fully in, partially and not at all. I quite like the 3rd one down where it's just a subtle hint at having one horn but then again I like it without. 

I started to play around with some of the images that I'd previously scanned in from my grandmothers books and used a photo of a mountain range. I'd used it without colour at first, just black and white, but it just got lost within the background so thought I'd add colour. I think the blue works well in contrast to the pink of the planet but I might try to see what it looks like in red since that is a colour associated with Aries.